by Celia Kyle
Head Over Tail - Ridgeville, Book Three
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
About Celia Kyle
Ridgeville: Book Three
Head Over Tail
Celia Kyle
October 2012
Published by Summerhouse Publishing. Copyright, Celia Kyle. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
Summerhouse Publishing
http://summerhousepublishing.com
Celia Kyle
http://celiakyle.com
Editor
Chris Stout
Cover Artist
Celia Kyle
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
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Chapter One
“Backbones are like assholes. Everyone’s got one. You just have to find yours. The backbone, not the asshole. I’m assuming you know where you asshole is. If not, we have bigger problems.” – Maya Josephs, Prima of the Ridgeville Pride, who swears ta god that she will slap her last name on her unborn twins’ birth certificates if her mate doesn’t marry her soon.
Maddy Lane’s kidnappers had been all about kung-fu fighting and fast as lightning.
She was not a kung-fu hi-ya! kind of gal and tended to lean toward run-and-hide.
Now, a ton of minutes post-kidnapping, she’d decided that being abducted was not an enjoyable experience and she really needed to learn how to wield a judo chop.
She kinda figured the kidnapping adventure needed to come to an end. Any time. She was totally ready. In all the romance novels she’d read, the heroine would be spirited away by evil-doers and then rescued before anything bad could happen to the poor, defenseless waif.
She hadn’t been rescued…not that she’d been missing all that long.
But still. Bad stuff had happened.
She tongued her lower lip, wincing when the muscle encountered the oozing wound that would make it hard to smile for a while. Her head throbbed to the hella fast beat of her heart. One of the assholes in the SUV was the cause of both discomforts and she’d love the chance to repay him.
Eventually. When she gathered enough nerve to fight them. Which would probably be never, but a girl could hope.
Maddy twisted her arms, rubbed her wrists against her bindings and searched for any give in the material. Snippets of pain from the movements registered, but she couldn’t worry about those feelings. Not when her life was at stake. Because, really, she wanted to do the whole “living” thing a little longer.
The SUV took a sharp left and she was thrown against one of the men. A piercing ache erupted in her chest and a small whimper escaped without conscious thought.
Okay, she could add bruised or broken ribs to her list of injuries. Lovely.
The man she leaned against didn’t respond to the sudden additional weight. But, as low as the sound had been, it caught the attention of one of the other males.
A beefy hand wrapped around her upper arm, yanking her upright once again. “Hey, pretty. Shut it. We don’t need no shit from the boss’ kitten, got it?”
She squeezed her eyes shut as the prickle of tears gathered behind her lids. She willed the moisture to recede. There was no way she’d let the men see her cry.
The male released her and she stifled another sound, a deep groan that had built in her chest as he’d held her tight. The palm had been covering a bruise, nothing more, but that additional ache just piled on with the others in her body.
Maddy felt like a bruise from head to toe and back again. Sure, she figured they’d tried to be easy with the whole “sneak in and grab her” thing, but she’d been asleep when they came for her. And when she slept, she forgot to be afraid.
She hadn’t heard them outside her home, disabling her alarm. Or when they’d picked the lock on her back door. Or when they’d crept through her house. Or when they’d secreted into her bedroom.
No, it wasn’t until that first brush of a foreign breath on her skin that she knew her space had been breached and she’d awoken a tad…upset.
That wasn’t even right. Upset was a word her parents used. Angry maybe? Pissed worked even better. Okay, fucking enraged.
And they hadn’t been expecting that reaction. Hell, if push came to shove, Maddy hadn’t been expecting it either. She was a cower-er by nature…
Well, they’d woken her and then they’d had to deal with her. More importantly, they had to deal with Maddy’s lioness. The cat had been less than pleased with all the males crowding her space.
Hell, she didn’t remember most of what happened between waking in her bedroom with a man looking down at her and sitting in the SUV. Obviously, it hadn’t been pretty.
Maddy took as deep a breath as she dared, pain in her chest flourishing with the move. She needed to stay calm and figure out where her life had gone to hell.
And the quickest way to do that was tap into the wonderful powers she hated and put them to use. Her abilities were the source of her life’s hardships, but they had their uses.
True, being a Sensitive meant she could do more than a “normal” shifter. She could sense turmoil in the pride, soothe others in need and glean knowledge that shifters may want to keep hidden.
Guess how many lions, hell shifters, avoided her?
All of them.
Ding, ding, ding… Johnny, tell her what she’s won!
When shifters weren’t taunting and being mean to her, they were keeping their distance, afraid she’d somehow lay some voodoo smack-down on them.
Well, except Maya. The pride Prima had a knack for cutting through B.S. and had a habit of telling the other cats to get the fuck over themselves.
Maddy wanted to be her when she grew up.
Sensitives were needed, essential, but they were also the physically weakest of the cats which left her at the mercy of the others. True, the Prima had put an end to all that, but the fear lingered.
Damn her fear. She really needed to find her backbone like Maya had told her.
Backbones are like assholes…
Fuck it. She’d find it later. For now, she needed the metaphysical “lay of the land”.
One last breath and she let her consciousness float. Honestly, that was the only way to explain it… She just drifted in her head, the two halves of her mind twining in the cool darkness, picking and poking at one another until they twirled together and became one.
The lioness, the cat that ached for retribution and bl
ood, calmed with the first touch of Maddy’s human thoughts while Maddy’s human half became stronger with the stroke of her beast’s fur. They worked well together. Always had. Always would.
If only you’d work with me more often…
Maddy gritted her teeth. The only bad part of the whole process was that now she had the cat’s voice in her head. Joy. Oh, look, another “benefit” to being a Sensitive, she got to talk to the cat instead of getting vague emotional impressions like everyone else. Goody.
You love me. Stop pretending.
She did an internal eye roll. Can we get on with the show?
Fine.
The cat now focused, they worked together and her innate power flowed through the small space, poured over each body. She’d heard others describe the touch as being stroked by their mother, cleaned and snuggled when they were cubs.
The twitches and jerks of each male’s body eased. She opened her mouth, tasted the air and gauged their response. The dominance that permeated the air had lessened, but hadn’t disappeared.
Better than nothing. She was just thankful they hadn’t taken a bite out of her yet. Not everyone’s animals reacted well to getting poked and prodded by a Sensitive, so she was glad one of them wouldn’t be going all growly on her in such close quarters. Then again, she wasn’t even sure they knew who, or what, they’d kidnapped.
With another thought, a tendril of power slithered between each body, tapped the two behind her, the two beside her and the two at the front of the vehicle until their minds were wide open.
And then she dug.
She didn’t like what she found.
Out of the six males, one was a hyena, another a polar bear, two wolves and the group was rounded out with a pair of mountain lions.
All of them worked with a single man: Alistair McCain, the leader of Freedom.
She nearly groaned aloud with the news and her cat was right there beside her, feeling exactly the same.
About a week ago, the man had orchestrated her wererabbit friend Carly’s kidnapping. They’d gotten the rabbit back, extremely bloody and hurt, but back just the same. Actually, from what she’d been told, Ricker, the council’s tracker, had gotten her back. But whatever. The male had been after Alistair for some time, had hunted him to Ridgeville and had been pivotal in Carly’s rescue. Then, he’d disappeared, back on the hunt for the crazy male.
And when she meant crazy, it was in the literal sense.
Freedom was…insane. Their beliefs were based on the destruction of the shifter clans and removal of all hierarchy. They felt individual shifters could govern themselves. They didn’t need Primes, Alphas or Bucks. Which, considering the fact that the movement had a leader while trying to destroy the existence of leaders…struck her as a bit odd.
Kinda contradictory. But no one had ever said they were all that smart.
Okay. So, Freedom had her. Lovely. Now, she just needed to pluck out a handful of thoughts here and there.
Tiptoe through the window…er…their heads.
Maddy sent a tendril toward the hyena and took a peek…
Fucking bitch. Fucking dug her puny assed nails into my shit. Fucking whore. Gonna fuck that bitch’s shit up once Alistair’s through with her. Fat piece of shit…
Okay, she totally wasn’t a whore. Seriously. She hadn’t even taken part in the Gaian Moon, let’s-get-pregnant fuckfest in like, forever. And yeah, she did claw the ass, but he’d slapped her! And, hey, she wasn’t fat. Seriously. More cushion for the pushin’, maybe. Okay, a lot of cushion.
Asshat.
With an internal harrumph, she moved on…
A peek into the polar bear’s head revealed a red haze, blood on the brain, and she sensed that his gums ached, beast desperate for release. He wanted to rip the hyena apart for touching…her. Huh. Careful…oh so careful, she extended a ghostly representation of her hand into the male’s mind, stroked and pet his bear to ease him away from the killing edge.
By increments, the man’s body relaxed, shoulders easing down as the thirst for blood slithered from the bear’s thoughts.
Instantly, the aggression in the SUV lessened, floated back to a reasonable level and the remaining shifters seemed to slump into their seats.
With nothing left to glean from the bear, she moved on, touched the remaining males.
The mountain lions held lust balanced by an intense fear of Alistair’s wrath at her state. Apparently, they’d been directed to kidnap her very nicely.
Right.
The wolves were occupied with their hate of cats, Maddy included, but accepted that pleasing and supporting Alistair was a means to an end. They wanted to go lone because of…something, but the wolf laws demanded death to those who didn’t belong to a pack and so they’d been stuck. It was either jump in with Alistair, and the chance at freedom, or face sure death from the wolves.
After touching each male, she slithered back into her own body and let the cat slink back to her place inside Maddy. They were exhausted. No, exhausted didn’t quite cover things.
Poking around in one brain wasn’t all that hard. Poking and soothing, a little worse. Poking around in six heads and bringing a polar bear back from the edge of murdering everyone in the SUV? Well, that was like running a five minute marathon. Twice.
Had she mentioned she wasn’t all that into exercise?
Uh, yeah.
Maddy let the seat welcome her, sunk into the soft leather and leaned her head against the bear’s shoulder. If he’d been pissed about the others hurting her and he held a decent amount of fear of Alistair, she figured she’d be safe. For a little while.
With a yawn, she closed her eyes. She could do the whole scared shitless she-cat thing after she’d had a nap.
Sometime later, she jolted, the rough rocking of the truck yanking her from sleep to awake in a blink.
“Easy…” The voice of the man beside her was a low rumble. Soft and sweet, the tone was incongruous when she considered who was speaking. “We’re at the compound. You’ll meet with Alistair soon.”
Great.
Unable to speak, she jerked her head in a quick nod. So, she’d soon figure out why she’d been taken.
Twisting and turning down a half-dozen roads, they pulled up to a large iron gate and eased through the opening. A huge home spread before them and the SUV pulled behind the home and right into…a sunken drive. The truck continued on its path, into the earth and leaving civilization behind.
Well, wasn’t that just peachy.
They traveled deeper into the earth for another few minutes before parking beside a handful of other vehicles.
Various shifters milled about the trucks, watching their approach. The moment the SUV stilled, the males went into action, alighting from the vehicle, and the polar bear tugged her along.
She wasn’t about to fight him.
Now was not the time to find her backbone.
Maddy stumbled from the elevated truck and the bear caught her before she met the ground. “Thank you” rested on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back. She didn’t have to be polite to kidnappers. She was pretty sure that was a kidnap-ee rule. If not, it should have been.
She’d head to the library as soon as she was rescued and double check. Hell, she’d write her own manual if she needed to… What to Expect When Shifters Break into Your Home, Beat You Up and Kidnap You by Maddy Lane
Had a nice ring to it…
She almost smiled. Almost. Of course, the inclination quickly got squashed by the echoing roar that split the cavernous room.
“You dared!”
Everyone’s focus swiveled toward the source of the voice and Maddy whimpered, sliding behind the polar bear and putting his large body between hers and the newcomer’s.
While she’d had to consciously enter the other male’s minds to discover their feelings, this other man’s intentions and emotions slammed into her like a Mack truck. It wasn’t anger. It was more. Rage, molten hot and pure, spewed from the shifter
and her two halves warred inside her.
The human wanted to run and hide, cower in the presence of such emotion, such agression. The cat ached to soothe the beast, knowing that his outburst hurt others, caused strife within the pride. Okay, not pride, per se. How about strife in their fucked up menagerie? Fuckedagerie?
Suddenly, the screamer was before them, his hands on the polar bear’s shoulders, claws slicing into skin, and he tossed the large male aside as if he weighed nothing. Which left her with a death-craving lunatic.
Go team Dead Maddy!
Without conscious thought, the cat lunged inside her head, forced a joining. Then her power poured from her, right into the enraged male. Hands, more than she possessed on the physical plane, stroked the man’s polar bear. It snarled and snapped at her attempts to soothe him, ghosted teeth reaching for her, aching to sink into her flesh. She and the cat dove past the beast’s defenses and put her hands on his fur, grabbed him by the ruff. And that fast, the animal’s rage dissipated as if it’d never existed.
The man’s blood-red mind cleared, the haze of desperation for death receded, leaving a single, calm polar bear in the male’s mind.
Immediate danger eliminated, the lioness in Maddy’s mind retreated and the human half of her slumped, exhaustion overtaking her. The man could catch her…or not.
When her world tilted, she realized he’d swept her into his arms and cradled her against his chest.
A deep voice emanated from the man holding her, the sound sending a vibration through her body. “And this is why I brought her here.”
…I brought her here.
Well, goody. She’d just fainted into the arms of Alistair McCain. Wasn’t that just fucking perfect.
* * *
Ricker Croft tossed back the remainder of his Jack, draining the glass in one big gulp. Not that he wanted to swallow the searing liquid. But appearances had to be kept up, and the small town at the base of Willow Mountain had pegged him as a heavy drinking shifter in hiding.